Janet Harker and an Adventure with Aliens
by Nerdfighter1309
Summary: A spin-off from my other stories starting 'Janet Harker and the Philosopher's Stone', so this is also a minor crossover with Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Auror Thom Harker and his daughter Janet go to protect an artifact in Bellwood, what could go wrong?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N Just a quick note, this is a spin off from my Janet Harker series (after book 2), that means it's also a minor Percy Jackson crossover, but you may wish to read the first one or two fics, it will make more sense that way, but it can make sense if you don't. Bold is spells, italics are Ancient Greek, inverted commas are thoughts.**

Janet was bored, she was sitting outside the office of the Bellwood Aurors, most cities do not have their own Aurors office, but Bellwood was special, it was a regional city, with a large magical population, requiring a large number of Aurors to keep the peace. Janet was thirteen, short for her age, with very long blond hair that reached her hips, dark brown eyes that were almost black, she was pretty, but didn't know that (she had a small clue from the disaster of Valentine's day this year). She was wearing jeans, a purple shirt and comfortable brown shoes, there was a bracelet on one wrist shaped like a ruby-eyed snake biting its own tail, she was looking after her backpack, which contained her wand, a literal magic book, a couple of spell books and a change of clothes. She was waiting for her father, who was talking to the portly regional commissioner about why he had been asked to come here when there was already Aurors in the area. Janet was sitting on the chair swing her legs, when an explosion shook the building, Janet rushed to the window to see what was happening.

Out on the street, a tall, muscular, brown, scaly dinosaur thing, was fighting a not as tall robot, the robot was metallic silver, about four metres tall and decorated to look a king in armour. 'What a weird city,' Janet thought as she watched people run from the fight, no-one was acting like this was a rare occurrence, it kind of reminded her of Amity Park.

"What was that?" Her father asked rushing over, followed by the balding regional commissioner. Thom Harker was a tall and muscular man, somewhere in his late thirties to early forties. Despite the heat of the summer he was dressed in a three-piece tweed suit, he had a slightly weather-beaten face and a full head of black hair with silver streaks running through; he had friendly blue eyes that glinted happily as he talked.

"Just the aliens, they fight sometimes, we try to steer the civilians away, but we can't do anything about it, we don't have the authority, the ability, or enough Aurors," the commissioner said wringing his hands. The commissioner (whose name was Ian), was a rather rotund man in his late fifties, his grey hair was thinning on the top his long face, his green eyes were tired, the eyes of a man who had overworked himself as a young man and continued to, despite his increasing age.

"Have you not asked for permission to do something?" Thom asked as the dinosaur thing punched the robot into a building.

"We have, but, as I said we are already overextended with the magical population in the city, I simply don't have the manpower to deal with them, we send in clean up squads, and deal with any magical beings who try to do something stupid, but that's all we can do," Janet did not like Ian.

'He seems like a nice enough person,' Janet thought as she tried to slip away, 'but he's standing around whilst people could get hurt, when it's his job to help,' Janet was stopped when a roar of triumph could be heard from outside, the dinosaur had punched the robot's head off, the machine was lying on the floor, defeated.

"They didn't knock down a building this time, the muggles can do clean up, it's not major," Ian said returning to his office; Janet looked at the damage wrought by the fighting. Building facades were crumbled, roads shattered, pipes burst, cars crushed and the giant robot the dinosaur had left in the middle of what was once a road.

"If this is minor, I would hate to see major," Janet said out loud.

"It does seem a little worrying how acclimatisation Ian was to this, he treated this like it was totally normal, it's like something from a bad sci-fi movie," Thom said smiling at his daughter, "by the way, we're here because some muggles got hold of a magical artefact, and have donated it to the museum. According to the commissioners, someone is almost definitely going to try to steal it. Despite this, the owners and the museum are refusing to let the Ministry take or buy the artefact, so I have to help guard it because the region is already short staffed."

"So, what is it? And who'd want to steal it?" Janet asked, she could have taken the information she needed from Ian's head, he was not an occlumencer, so she could take the information with legilimency, but it would be rude to pry, and slightly illegal.

"The artefact is an ancient spell book, written in the Black Forest, somewhere near Leipzig in the 15th Century by a dark wizard named Grinkleslurn. He didn't do much except make up spells, most of which were rather dangerous, including necromancy and spells to make oneself a Lich, although he's the only successful Lich to ever arise from his method. Apparently there are several groups who might want the book, the first are a pair of sorcerers who use different magic to us, even your elemental magic. The second are the aliens, because we have no clue in their motives, so can be suspect for anything, and thirdly any one of the petty thieves and criminals amongst the magical population who might want it for how much it's worth or to take over the world."

"So, that really narrows it down to," Janet pretended to count on her fingers, "to just about anyone then," Janet sighed, "great," she deadpanned.

"Well, I've got a stakeout to plan, why don't you go and enjoy the sun?" Thom asked ruffling his daughter's hair.

"Yeah, I could look for a souvenir for Alice or Cobblepot," Janet said, "I'll meet you at the museum later."

"Remember stranger danger," Thom said jokingly.

"I think I'm more of a danger to the stranger than they are to me," Janet said smiling as she walked out the room, Thom's laughed echoed out the room after her.


	2. Chapter 2

Downtown Bellwood looked like any other city in America, there were traffic jams sitting between streams of humanity on the pavement, which in turn were surrounded in high rises, office blocks and sprawling shopping centres. Janet looked around at the faceless buildings and the people whose faces instantly left her mind as she looked at around and as they rushed to somewhere and from wherever. Janet passed a high school, she turned a corner and found herself facing a small bookshop, there was something interesting about the shop, it felt magical. The shop was a two story detached brick shop with a blank front, it stood on its own between two apartment blocks, which appeared to be trying to lean away from the creepy little shop. It did not look like a shop, more like an abandoned house, with small windows and a wooden door with flaky green paint, the only way to tell it was a bookshop was the old fashioned wooden sign swinging on a rusty bracket, the sign was faded but still legible, it simply had a picture of a book. There was something about the place that made it irresistible to Janet, so of course she had a look.

The shop was as strange inside as it was outside, the shop was dark with dust floating in the air, but nothing was dusty, there were a surprising number of people in the shop, probably other witches and wizard or other magical denizens the people were silent as they walked around dressed in cloaks, robes and trench coats. The books were arranged not on shelves but were stacked in a sort of maze through the shop, the shop appeared, as far as Janet could tell, to be one massive room, far larger than the entirety of the outside of the building, but that was not rare for magical buildings. Janet looked at a book on the bottom of a pile that she wanted to have a look at, but she could not remove it without pulling down the three-metre tall stack. Janet was considering her options when suddenly the pile shrank, and the book was ejected from the pile and landed at her feet. 'Well, that was weird,' Janet thought as she picked up the book, it was marked as a book on European monsters, it looked not so much old as just distressed, Janet opened it to discover it was hideously inaccurate and outdated.

She stood there wondering how to return the book when a little old lady shuffled up behind her, "first time at the shop dear," it was a statement, not a question.

'The old lady is probably the owned,' Janet reasoned, 'or a very regular customer.' The old lady looked human, she had stringy grey hair which extended past her massive red rimmed glasses which covered her watery blue eyes, she was smiling at Janet, she was a little shorter than medium and was dressed in a red polka dot dress and grey cardigan.

"The stacks are controlled by your intentions dear, if you intend to take a book out a stack it will release the book, if you intend to return a book a gap will open up for you to put the book in. I have to say, it's good to see the younger generation take an interest in my books, most witches your age either don't care about knowledge and books or go to that big new bookshop run by those Elves downtown. Most of their books are muggle fiction, not even good fiction at that," the old lady said in a croaking voice as she smiled away. "Well, you have fun now, ask if you need anything," the old lady turned and walked away through the maze of books.

Janet continued to browse through the massive maze of a bookshop, occasionally she would come across another customer who would pass her silently as they browsed. Janet soon discovered that no matter which way you went in the maze if you turned left three times you were back at the front door, and that no matter which direction you looked in you could see a giant green wall clock with yellow hands, which made timekeeping easy. "I'm never going to find anything useful," a female voice said in frustration from around the next corner, Janet turned the corner to see a girl in her mid to late teens. The girl was tall and pretty, she had red hair pulled back into a ponytail, and intense green eyes, she was wearing a red jumper over a collared white shirt with the top button undone as well as a grey skirt which went to just above her knee, grey stockings and grey flats.

"Are you okay?" Janet asked as she walked over.

"I'm fine," she said between gritted teeth, she turned to look at Janet, "aren't you a little young to be in a shop like this," Janet raised an eyebrow, "never mind, I was looking for a spell book or grimoire which I don't already have, but I can't find any."

"What kind of spells were you looking for?" Janet asked as she thought over the books she had seen.

"Defensive really, I suppose just combat spells in general," she said as she looked up and down the columns of books, it made sense, of course the witches and wizards would want to protect themselves from the aliens, "but I wouldn't mind to find any practical spells really, I don't know as many as I should."

"Well, I'll have a look; also if you find any books by Gilderoy Lockhart, ignore them."

"Why?"

"Lockhart's a fraud, he could only do one spell, the memory charm, so he got other wizards to tell him their stories of their heroics and would then wipe their minds, write their stories up as books and claim their heroics as his own," Janet said as she scoured the shelves.

"That's dreadful, and he got away with this?"

"For a couple of years, then his spell backfired and he was revealed as a fraud, he's now a gibbering mess in Saint Mungo's mental unit," Janet grabbed a large leather bound book she found as it fell out the stack, the book had a crossed wand and sword on the cover, "this might help."

"Thank," the redhead said as she took the book, she opened the book, "um, it's all in French."

Janet blushed, she had not actually read the book, it just looked like the kind of book that they were looking for, "oops, my bad."

"I'll just find someone to translate it, I'm Gwen by the way," she held out her hand, which Janet shook.

"Janet, nice to meet you," the wall clocks chimed, Janet looked up, the time was now five pm, "I should probably go, my Dad's going to start worrying if I'm not back soon. It was nice to meet you."

"And you, goodbye."

"Goodbye," Janet turned and left the shop.

* * *

The museum was a grand building made of brown stone, it was at the top of a long flight of wide grey stone stairs at the base of stairs was a concrete courtyard with three trees ringed with benches scattered through the area. The museum itself had a facade of tall columns that looked like they were holding up the roof, in front the row of columns was a wall covered in three massive banners advertising the museum's attractions. There were a few people going in and out or milling about, Janet walked past the people, searching for Thom, he was not on the steps, she had searched the surrounding area, but he was nowhere to be seen. Janet sighed and sat down at the bottom of a tree, she non-verbally cast the legilimens spell and started searching for Thom's mind.

After a while, she found him, he was on a rooftop across the street, just at the edge of her range, 'hi Dad,' she thought at him.

'Damn it Janet, don't do that, you scared the living daylights out of me, anyway, how was the city?' Thom thought back.

'Like any other city, tall buildings, traffic and lots of people, I did find an interesting bookshop, but most of the books were either outdated or I already knew the subject.'

'Well, you can return to hotel if you like, I'm just setting up the last few wards and then I'll join you.'

'Okay,' Janet thought, she dispelled the legilimens spell and walked off towards the hotel where they were staying.

* * *

The hotel was a small hotel, not far from the city centre, it was run by a cheery couple in their middle years and a few staff members, there were ten suites, and most of them were empty. Janet and Thom's suite was formed of two bedrooms, a sort of lounge area and a bathroom, the whole place had neutral yellow wallpaper and a light green carpet, it was only equipped with the bare minimum, two beds, a sofa, a couple of small tables, a few shelves, a pair of wardrobes and a safe. The most important part of the hotel was the fact that the owners, staff and other guests were magical, making it safe to do magic in the place.

Janet had dinner at the hotel's small restaurant before returning to the room, having a shower and getting ready for bed, she was exhausted from travelling most of the day, they had to take a muggle plane, as Bellwood's floo network did not work, (someone broke it in a fight), so she turned in for the night.


	3. Chapter 3

Janet woke up at one o'clock according to the wall clock, she was surprised she had managed to sleep through her Dad leaving the room, (subtlety was not his strong point), there was a note on her bedside table written in her Dad's handwriting, (written in Greek of course).

" _Saw you were still sleeping peacefully, so I let you sleep on, and have already gone to the museum, have fun,_

 _Lots of love, Dad_."

Janet went through her usual morning routine before heading out, she was unsure if she wanted to head to the bookshop to see if any of the books they had were of any use, or to go to the museum and see if Dad and have a look around the inside, and maybe see the book he was guarding.

She made up her mind and headed towards where she thought the bookshop was, only she ended up horribly lost, she ended up in a rundown area in serious need of repairs. She was unsure if the area was actually run down or was the fake rundown used by the wizarding community to hide in plain sight, as the rough demeanour tended to scare off muggle. After all, if it looked too nice, the muggles might try and live there, this tactic was used all over the world, it made security bills cheaper as they did not have to build complicated Diagon Alley style doors. After ending up at the same abandoned movie theatre for the third time, Janet gave up and tried to leave, however, things were not going well, she was so turned about she did not know which way to go, and the only people in any direction looked more likely to (try to) rob her than to help her.

There was the sound of something crashing in the distance, like a small explosion, the streets cleared almost instantly, Janet ran in the direction of the explosion. She found herself, eventually, in familiar surrounds, she came out just a few blocks from the hotel where a flying red bat thing was fighting a snake with arms, which was slithering like it had hind legs, there was a burning car in the middle of the road.

"This town gets weirder and weirder," Janet muttered as she stayed in the shadow of the alley she was standing in, " **incarcerous** , **petrificus totalus** ," the snake was wrapped up in giant ropes that appeared from nowhere, however, the body bind failed to do anything, the snake hissed its outrage, "probably magic resistant," Janet said as she considered her next move. The giant red bat took the opportunity to head-butt the snake in the chest, the creature stopped struggling and slumped to the floor.

"Man I hate snakes, especially giant snakes," Janet said as she waited for the bat to deal with the snake before leaving the alley, she peaked around the corner, no weird oversized animals, she stepped out the alley and started walking towards the direction of the hotel.

"Thank you," a croaky voice said, Janet started and turned to face the voice, it was the bat, the creature was crouched on top of a lamppost. Curious about the strange animal she started reading its mind, just looking at simple things, like its name, she did not pry into its deepest secrets, that would be rude.

"Your welcome," Janet said, looking it up and down, it was about five foot six, with large red wings, a long powerful tail, spindly limbs, a pair of yellow horns over its beady green eyes, and taloned hands and feet, it looked awkward crouching on its perch.

"How did you do it?" The bat creature said, Jetray, real name Ben, she read from its mind, it cocked its head at her.

"Magic," she said simply, Jetray appeared to frown.

"My cousin can do magic, she's never done anything like that before," Jetray seemed nice, just not particularly bright or knowledgeable.

Janet shrugged, "maybe she doesn't know the spell, or her magic is different to mine, or she can and chooses not to as she has more effective spells." Jetray sat on its perch for a moment before Janet, unhappy with the awkward silence, said anything, "I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Janet, it's a pleasure to meet you Ben."

"I never told you my name, how do you know it?" Janet decided this would be the best time to leave; she smiled and winked before turning and walking off.

* * *

Ben was sitting outside Mister Smoothie, Bellwoods best (and only) smoothie shop, Ben was about fifteen, average height, average build, with average length brown hair and green eyes, he was dressed in a green jacket over a black shirt and was wearing brown slacks and black trainers. On his wrist was arguably the most powerful non-magical device in the universe, the Omnitrix, a watch shaped device, where instead of a watch face there was instead a green hourglass on a black background. Gwen was sitting opposite to him, their friend Kevin was ordering smoothies, Kevin was sixteen and just under six feet tall, with a lean muscular build, he had black hair that was long for a guy, and grey eyes, he was wearing a black shirt with grey sleeves, blue jeans and black trainers. "So, how was your hiking?" Ben asked Kevin when he walked up to their table at Mr Smoothie; he had their usual drinks in hand.

"I don't want to talk about it," Kevin said, as he sat next to Gwen, "I never knew squirrels were so dangerous."

"Well, I had fun shopping," Gwen said as she took her drink from her cousin, "so, what did you do all day?"

"I fought that annoying snake that walks like a man, and then met another magic user," Ben said, taking a sip from the strawberry and banana smoothie.

"Oh?" Gwen asked, "what were they like?"

"She was short, blond, about twelve or thirteen years old. She was kind of weird, she knew my name, but I never told her, she told me hers but I forgot it," Ben shrugged and slurped his smoothie.

"I think I've met her, I was in a bookshop," Gwen started before Ben cut her off.

"Oh no, not more bookshop stories, I can feel my brain frying already," he slumped dramatically

"It was a magic bookshop," Ben perked up.

"That exists? There are magic bookshop, are they bookshop that are magic, or does it sell magic books?"

"Both, I think I met your mysterious magic girl, we went book shopping together, she helped me find a book I was looking for, she seemed nice enough. Her name's Janet" Cue an explosion.

Kevin yelled in frustration, before throwing his smoothie to the ground, "can't we enjoy one evening without something exploding."

"It would seem not," Ben said turning the Omnitrix dial to Jetray, he slammed down the dial and changed into the red bat, "race ya," he soared into the sky, Kevin and Gwen raced to Kevin's green and black muscle car.

* * *

Janet had just reached her hotel room when an explosion shook the building, "oh for goodness sake, why does this city explode every ten minutes?" She shouted at the empty room. She looked out the window to see smoke rising from the direction of the museum, "oh no, Dad," she whispered in shock, she turned and ran.


	4. Chapter 4

Ben, as Jetray, surveyed the museum courtyard, there was a large smouldering crater in the middle, one of the trees lay smouldering nearby, in the centre of the crater was the crumbled remains of a very familiar rock monster, 'the question is where's its master?' As if to answer his question there was an explosion on the rooftop nearby and a piece of building almost hit him as he swooped away. He floated there and as the dust cleared he saw a tall man in a tweed jacket holding a stick, fighting a shorter man who was dressed in hooded black robes, black gloves and an ornate silver beaked mask, he was holding a white cane with a black carved dragon on top. They were locked in what was probably a very intense fight for a magician, but it looked like two beams of light hitting each other, one white, one turquoise.

"I've got to say Auror, I'm impressed, most wizards cannot even hold their own against me," the wizard said in an English accent, he intensified the beam that was emanating from his cane, the turquoise turning sapphire blue, the meeting point of the beams shifted nearer to the man in tweed who was now sweating profusely and gasping for breath.

"Then you've gasp been fighting some gasp pretty pitiful wizards," he spun out the way and shot what was probably another spell at the masked man, who dismissed it with a beam from the cane.

"Hey, guess who!" Ben called shooting the wizard in the back with Jetray's eye blasts.

"You infernal bat, I shall remove your wings and feed them to you while you're still alive," he shot multi-coloured beams of light erratically at Ben who responded with his more accurate neuroshock blasts, however, the blasts were having no effect, they seemed to dissipate across the man's robes.

The man in tweed had now recovered and had started shooting his own magic at the man in robes, but they also had no effect, trying for a change of tactic Ben hit the Omnitrix turning himself into, "Humungousaur," he ran at the robed man, who rolled out the way.

"Be gone monster," the robed man shouted, a sharp pain started in Ben's back, causing him to collapse, " **ventus tria** ," suddenly a great gust of wind blew Ben over the side of the building.

Ben was caught by a magenta platform of energy with Gwen and Kevin, "good to see you waited for backup," Gwen said, Ben just groaned in response, the platform deposited them on the rooftop just as the masked figure finally defeated the man in tweed.

"And now, Auror, you will die," the masked figure raised his cane as an orb of magenta energy hit him in the side of the head. "Who dares to strike a servant of the Dark Lord?" He bellowed turning towards the new arrivals, "I see you have friends monster, no matter, you shall all perish together."

"Dude, who are you?" Kevin asked as he put his hand on the concrete of the roof and absorbed the concrete, creating a second skin of concrete around himself.

"My name is of no consequence in my service of the Dark Lord, but you are interesting, I know a doctor in Ireland who will pay handsomely for all of you, preferably alive. But, if you resist, I'm sure he'll understand," he raised his cane, " **expelliarmus** ," the spell hit Gwen's barrier, Gwen responded with a fist of pink energy, which knocked the masked man back, but did not appear to injure him. The reeling magician looked around him at Humungousaur and Kevin closing in before he started shouting, "fools, you may have superior numbers on this day, but I will return, and I will destroy you," he vanished like an image going down an invisible plug hole floating four feet in the air, accompanied with a cracking sound.

Gwen, Kevin, and Ben (now in human form) rushed to the man in tweed's side, "I'm fine," he said as he brushed off attempts to help him to his feet, "although I really should invest in some armoured clothing. My name is Thom, it's a pleasure to meet you," he held out his hand, which the three of them hesitantly shook and introduced themselves.

"Um, Thom, why were you fighting him, and who was he?" Ben asked as Thom picked up a wand from the floor.

"It's my job, I'm an Auror," he said as if that explained everything, upon seeing confused their confused faces he sighed before elaborating, "magical law enforcement, you at least should know," he pointed at Gwen.

"Me? Why me?"

"Because you're a witch, or sorceress, magician, whatever term you want to use. Did your teachers never tell you what an Auror was?" He asked in disbelief.

"I don't have any teachers, I'm self-taught," Gwen said proudly.

"Self-taught?" Thom asked slowly, "do you know how dangerous and irresponsible it is to teach yourself magic? There's a reason it's against the law, please tell me someone taught you the basics at least, and where is your wand?"

"I don't have a wand."

"Wandless and self-taught? Oh my Gods, the paperwork on this one, oh hang on, I'm getting ahead of myself, if you're wandless, you might be an exception, show me your magic," Gwen lit up on hand, Thom smiled and his eyes lit up slightly, "ah, mana magic, that's fine, you're not my problem, I'll let the sanctuary deal with you."

"Sanctuary?"

"We're getting off track," Kevin butted in, "who was that man?"

"I have no idea, but I know what he is, he's Death Eater, a dark wizard who followed Voldemort, the Dark Lord who fought a secret wizarding war over thirteen years ago. After his defeat his followers were either captured, scatter or some carried on the fight, the fellow we fought is one of the latter, he's a fanatic, and this is why I hate fanatics."

"So, how do we track him?" Ben asked.

"We don't, he'll come to us, he's after a dangerous spell book in the museum, he'll be back, and I'll be waiting, this time with better shields and wards."

"Dad, are you up there?" Came a voice from the ground, Thom rushed over to the edge of the building and looked over.

"Ah, there's Janet, I wondered what took her," he said smiling, the others joined him, "Janet we're up here."

"Great," she replied sarcastically, "how do I get up there?"

"Coming down," Thom jumped off the building, and bounced off an invisible, something, it is rather hard to tell what something is when it is invisible. He landed without a scratch on him. Ben turned into Big Chill and swooped down, whilst Kevin and Gwen rode down on a platform of mana, Ben and Gwen both recognised the girl instantly.

"Oh hi Janet," Gwen said smiling.

"Hi Gwen, hi Ben," Janet said, waving at them.

"How did you know it was me?" Ben asked.

Janet simply smiled before turning to Thom, "so, what was it?"

"A Death Eater, one of the ones still on the run, and he had some weird rock creature with him that I didn't recognise, I think it's from a kind of magic we don't know about."

"We know what it is," Gwen said as she looked at the rock monster, "they're usually the henchmen of Hex and Charmcaster, although he haven't heard from Hex in about six years, and Charmcaster is currently in jail somewhere, so, someone might have stolen them from her, or just knows how to make them."

"Hmm," Thom rubbed his chin in thought, "we don't want that lunatic wandering about if he knows how to make rock monsters. However, if he knew how to make them then he would have had more than one, no, I think he bought it or stole it, so is being careful in how he uses them. Either way, I'm setting up more wards, I think in hindsight some disapparition wards would be a good idea," Thom walked off towards the museum, twirling his wand as he went.

"He's a bit, eccentric," Kevin said.

"Hello, I'm still here," Janet said, "anyway, thanks for helping Dad, I was really worried that I wouldn't get here in time."

"Well, not to be offensive, but what would you have done?" Kevin asked, "you're so tiny, and like twelve."

"I'm thirteen, and I am still a witch, which means I can do quite a lot," Janet said, Kevin was about to speak when he was silenced by a raised eyebrow.

"How did you know it was me?" Ben asked again.

Janet smiled, "anyway, I'm going to set up a portkey so I can get here sooner next time," she then turned and walked off.

"One day she will answer that question," Ben said quietly, "one day."


	5. Chapter 5

The next day Janet decided to help her Dad stake out the museum, so early in the morning she went into the museum to check on the spell book, being very careful to avoid her Dad's wards and traps as she set her own traps and wards. Satisfied with her work she sat down on a bench near to the book and started drawing the artefacts on display, she was an awful artist, and she knew it, but it made the stakeout less tedious. She was sitting there, happily drawing away, when she felt a chill down her spine, something was near, and it was not nice, so shutting her sketchbook she carefully made her way out of the museum. Janet sighed in relief, thinking she lost it, when she felt the chill again. Janet spun, but could not see anything, she was in a crowded public place, she could not flush it out with magic, but with legilimency. Janet calmed her nerves and reached with her mind, looking for a mind, which was different, she could feel her Dad, on a rooftop, drinking tea and reading a newspaper. She moved on, feeling various magicians, but none that sent a chill down her spine, until, standing behind her was a very faint mind, almost a ghost. That was the mind she was looking for, she dove in, it was Ben, seeing if he was following her she walked to a less crowded area, he followed her, Janet sighed and set up a notice me not ward.

"Stop following me Ben," Janet said, there was a startled gurgle from behind her, she turned to see Ben, as a ghostly blue bug, appear.

"How did you know it was me?" He asked in the bug's eerie voice.

"You were breathing on me, it sent chills down my spine, it was either you or a ghost, and I doubt there are many ghosts in this city who are interested in me."

"Point taken."

"Why are you here? We got this one."

"Last time you guys needed a bail out," Ben pointed out.

"Yeah, but I wasn't here."

"Still don't think you'll do much."

"I could turn you into a squirrel if you like."

"Wait, can you actually do that?"

"Yeah, well, maybe not with you like this, but if you were human," Janet left the rest unsaid.

"So, why didn't your Dad do that?"

"He can't, and besides, I doubt it would work anyway, most magicians have a way of countering transfiguration magic."

"I have no clue what that means," Ben said smiling in confusion

Janet sighed, "magic that changes one thing into another thing."

"Oh, why didn't you say so," Janet sighed again.

"I'm going back into the museum, you can carry on however you like, just don't trip any traps or wards, some are configured for intangible and invisible people," Ben vanished, Janet dispelled the ward and returned to where she had been drawing.

* * *

An hour later all hell broke loose, it started with one of the wards at the front of the building triggering, then all of them at once, Janet ran towards the disturbance, where she saw four rock monsters, seven feet tall and pulsing with purple magic, they were pretty intimidating.

"I suppose you're not the new security guards?" Janet joked as one punched at her, her training kicked in as she rolled out the way, she activated her elemental magic and pulled up a pillar of rock, the pillar hit the monster straight in the face, knocking it back a couple of steps, the creature roared and punch through the pillar, reducing it to rubble. "Just great, super strong and durable, I hate these things already," Janet said as she dodged punches, she ran away to the edge of the courtyard to take stock of her surroundings. Ben, as the dinosaur from their first day here, and his friends were fighting three monster, and the last was slowly charging at her, Thom was joining the battle as he had just climbed down from his perch. "Dad, guard the book, I got his!" She called, Thom faltered before nodding and running into the museum.

The giant monster bellowed as it neared, Janet hit it in the side with another pillar, causing the monster to fall over as its momentum was suddenly forced in another direction, the monster groggily got to its feet and punched at Janet, who raised a shield meet it. "How do you fight a rock?" Janet asked herself as it pounded at her barrier, its face had been cracked by the fall, and the pillars to the face, "hope this works, **reducto maxima** ," the weakened rock exploded as the spell hit, bits of rock head flew in all directions. The monster continued pounding for another swing before realising it was decapitated and collapsing. Meanwhile, Ben and co were struggling with their three, Janet picked up a pebble and threw it at the nearest monster, it bounced harmlessly off the creature's back, it turned and roared. "Yes, yes, you're big and scary, now, let's get this over with," the monster charged and punched the ground where Janet had been standing, she'd cartwheeled out the way, the creature punched again, but the punch didn't land " **aqua eructo** ," water erupted from under the feet of her adversary, knocking it over. Before it could recover Janet cast another spell, " **alarte ascendare** ," the rock monster was lifted about ten feet off the floor and then dropped, "holy cow that worked, I can't believe I'm saying this, but thank you Lockhart, you were actually useful" the monster blundered to its feet again. Janet looked at the remains of the other rock monster, still leaking magic out of its neck, the monster roared, distracting Janet, " **flipendo tria** ," the other monster was knocked over again. "I wonder," Janet said turning back to the pile of rocks, " **oppugno** ," the remains of the rock monster lumbered to its feet, the purple veins were now blue, it looked at Janet expecting something, "oh, right, orders, destroy the monsters." The reanimated monster lumbered over to the other rock monster, which had just made its way to its feet, it did not react to the other the monster's approached until Janet's monster punched it in the face, and the uppercut knocked its head off.

It then walked over to where the last monster was fighting Ben and Gwen, Kevin was half buried in a wall next to a defeated monster with a hole in its chest. The last monster was worse for the wear, it was missing an arm, meaning it barely holding off Ben and Gwen as tried to use its own severed limb as a club. The blue veined monster ran up behind it and punched it in the back of the head, unlike the other monster its head stayed attached and it turned and hit its ex-comrade with its club arm, shattering both the club and the monster's chest.

"Well, that's a shame," Janet said, " **reducto maxima** ," the spell shattered the head that had been weakened by her reanimated monster. "That's three for me," Janet said smiling impishly.

"Hey, that last one was a joint effort," Ben said.

"This isn't a competition," Gwen said, behind her Kevin started pulling himself out the rubble, Gwen ran to his side to help dig him out. Janet, used her earth elemental magic to levitate off the lumps of rubble and repair the wall that had fallen on him.

"Show off," Ben muttered, Gwen helped a barely conscious Kevin to his feet as Thom came sailing through the open door to the museum.


	6. Chapter 6

"Foolish Auror, my pets will have kill your friends by now," a familiar voice called from inside, as the Death Eater stepped through the door, "what?" He screeched, "what did you do to my pets? Do you know how much they cost?"

"No, not really," Janet said angrily as she glared at the wizard, "and I don't care. I will give you one chance to surrender."

The Death Eater laughed, "you little girl, I am better than you, I am a fully grown pureblood wizard, trained personally by Lord Voldemort, you are just a little girl, even if your family is pureblood, you are nothing compared to me, blood traitor."

"You asked for it, you guys get Kevin and Dad to safety, this guy is mine," Janet said, Ben looked ready to interject, but Gwen stopped him, so they got Kevin and Thom and started carrying them away.

"No matter, I will kill you quickly and them soon after, **avadra kedavra** ," the killing curse flew towards Janet, who blocked it with a pillar of rock.

"Elemental magic trumps dark magic," Janet called as she summoned the wind to hit the mage, although the wind hit him, it did little besides knock him over.

"Armoured clothing beats elemental magic, blood traitor," the wizard called as the wind died down.

"The thing with armoured clothing is, it can only do so much, I just need to hit you harder," Janet summoned the wind again.

"Not again, **reducto** ," the explosion hit a wall of wind.

"My turn," Janet shouted, the Death Eater was suddenly thrown against a wall by the force of the wind, then another wall, then another, when the wind finally died down the wizard stood up.

"Not even a scratch, as if a blood traitor like you could ever harm a chosen one like me, **crucio** ," the torture curse passed straight through the wall of wind and struck, Janet collapsed writhing in pain, she tasted blood as she bit her cheek, but that did not matter, nothing mattered except this horrendous pain.

The Death Eater limped slightly as he advanced on the girl's writhing form, he did not want to admit it, but the blood traitor had done a number on him. He was bruised all over, and his nose was broken under his mask, but that did not matter, 'soon I will have the book, I can use it to realise Master's plan, I can find the magician who has enough power to finally stop the tyranny of death, then I can resurrect Master.' The Death Eater finally allowed himself one of that day's three smiles as he watched the girl writhe in pain, 'I just have to kill the Auror, then his wards will be undone and I can claim my prize, I think I will torture his daughter for a while longer, let him know she suffered for his defiance.'

Janet was about to pass out when she finally managed to have a pain free thought, it was a plan, a stupid plan, but a plan none the less. She reached out with legilimency, fighting through the pain as she did so, she found the Death Eater's mind, he had lowered his mental shield, enjoying his victory. She tried something she had only read about, she pushed the sensation of pain into his mind, and the Death Eater screamed and stopped the spell as his concentration was broken, "what did you do?" He screeched, Janet played unconscious, "no, not her, it must be another," she felt the mental defences go up in his mind, but she was already inside, "show yourself." Janet tried again, this time pushed an image, a simple one there was a flash of movement out the corner of his eye, every time he turned it would appear again somewhere else. "Show yourselves cowards, you mudbloods and blood traitors, I will take the lot of you," deciding that she had recovered enough, Janet herded him with the images until he was next to her feet. She had seen something, his trousers were too short, they did not protect his ankles she kicked him hard in the ankle, the already injured joint gave way, the Death Eater squawked as he fell. "Still conscious are you?" The Death Eater asked as pulled himself to his feet to face Janet, he punched at her out of rage, but his hand stopped with a sickening crack inches from her face, he howled in pain, again. " **Avadra keda** -" he did not finish the spell as a large rock, about the size of a fist hit him in the stomach and drove the air from his lungs, the unfinished spell crackled before fizzing out, Janet grabbed the cane off the wizard as he gasped for air.

"I win," Janet said as she backed away from the Death Eater, " **incarcerous** ," heavy rope flew out the end of the cane and wrapped the Death Eater upon a cocoon of rope, even tying a bow on top.

"I will escape and I will," the Death Eater started before being muted.

"Alright wizard ready to, oh," Ben, still as Humungousaur said as he reappeared in the courtyard.

"That's four," Janet said smiling, "you're just in time for clean up," she gestured and the courtyard stones moved back into place, leaving the remains of the four rock monsters in the courtyard, "there you go, modern art."

"I still say that one was a joint effort," Ben said as Janet walked away, leaning heavily on the capture cane as she went.

"Don't let him escape, I have a call to make," Janet called back to him, Ben sighed and sat down next to the cocooned Wizard, who was still shouting silent abuse.

Twenty minutes later Janet returned with a still injured Thom, the pudgy regional commissioner and two of his Aurors, "take him away," the commissioner ordered, the Aurors walked forward and picked up the writhing wizard and carried him away. "You have my thanks Mr Harker, and you Miss Harker," he turned to Ben, "and you giant dinosaur thing, do you have a name?"

"I am Humungousaur," Ben said awkwardly.

"Well thank you all of you, if not for you then it's unlikely we would have defeated him, the Aurors are spread thin enough as it is," an explosion rocked the courtyard, "what now?"

"My ropes just dispelled by themselves," Janet said nervously

They shared a look before rushing off down the alleyway where the Aurors had carried the Death Eater only to find a crater and two unmoving Aurors, Thom rushed to the nearest Auror's side, "he's still alive," the other coughed and started to stir.

"Great, he'll be back, again, and we'll have to fight him again, and he'll have more help," Janet said.

"No, he won't, the museum has finally decided to let us take the book to safe keeping, it's going to be in the vault by nightfall," the commissioner said.

"Vault?" Ben asked.

"High security building, it has security tight enough to make Fort Knox look like piggy bank," Janet explained.

"So, he'll attack the transport then?" Ben asked.

"No, he's fanatic, but not stupid, he'll go for a different target, the security detail on anything going to the Vault is massive, twelve Aurors, eight armoured trolls, a pair of Cyclopes and a harpy, he'd need a small army," the commissioner interjected, the commissioner then went off to help his Aurors up and to get them medical help.

"So, he's gone then?" Ben asked.

"Yep, gone but not forgotten, we'll probably meet again though," Thom said, "I tend to always end up fighting the crazy ones.

"And I tend to have to bail you out," Janet said smiling weakly.

"That does seem to be the theme doesn't it?" Thom said ruffling Janet's hair, "well sport, time to go home, our work here is done and Uncle Alistair is visiting in a few days."

"Please never call me sport again," Janet said as he walked away to arrange travel.

"I suppose this is good bye," Ben said awkwardly.

"Yep, where did Gwen and Kevin get to by the way?" Janet asked suddenly noticing their absence.

On the other side of town Gwen and Kevin were sitting at Mr Smoothie, "what do you reckon's keeping Ben?" Gwen asked.

* * *

"Right, I've arranged travel," Thom said as Janet returned to their room, "we'll, leave tomorrow at eleven o'clock in the morning, should be home by nine in the evening, hopefully earlier. Unless, something turns up."

"Great," Janet said giving a lacklustre grin, Thom walked over and hugged his daughter in a one armed hug over her shoulder.

"Hey, it'll be alright, we can't catch them all, what matters is that we stopped him and the book is safe, he'll get caught eventually, they always are."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right, it's just, I thought it would be like the Director last year, you know, he'd play nice, go to prison, not escape almost immediately and hospitalise two Aurors."

"Well, you did scare the Director into an inch of his sanity," Janet shivered at the memory.

"Never let me do that again," Janet said solemnly, "I could have killed him."

"You almost killed yourself doing it Janet, it's why I stopped you, that and the fact I didn't want you to be murderer. Cheer up sport, you got his cane," Thom gestured at the cane which Janet had put in the corner of the room.

"Yay, whoo," Janet cheered sarcastically, "I got a cane and the bad guy is free to do dreadful things in the name of a dead man."

"We both know he's not dead, I mean, he has come back twice, what's stopping more?" Thom said sadly, "I hoped that lunatic was gone, that Thanatos had taken him and he'd paid the ferryman, but nope, he's sticking around," Thom paused and suddenly looked thoughtful, "maybe we're seeing the birth of monster, I'll have to talk to Chiron."

"He's definitely a monster, just a mortal one, rather than an immortal one, anyway, I'm tired, I'm going to sleep."


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning Thom was woken by a buzzing phone, which confused him, he didn't own a mobile phone, then he realised it was the hotel phone, he blearily stood and pulled on a robe before answering the phone, "hello? Thom Harker speaking."

"Thom, it's Ian," a very worried sounding commissioner said, "we have a problem, the convoy was attacked last night, they stole the book."

Thom was now wide-awake, "who has the book? Stop playing the pronoun game with me here commissioner."

"Knights, it sounds ridiculous, but knights riding hoverbikes armed with lasers, they attacked and disabled the guards."

Thom sighed, "Ian, are you drunk?"

"No, of course not, I'm on duty, look, we have footage, your daughter's a legilimencer, she can asked the Auror's to show her, but they were attacked by knights, as ridiculous as it sounds."

"Fine, I'll have to delay my travel plans, I hope to be compensated for this," Thom put down the phone, he then very carefully woke up his daughter, who looked at him blankly as she brushed the sleep from her eyes, "Janet, we're going to have to delay travelling home, the Book got stolen."

Janet was up in a start, "what? But it was under guard, twelve Aurors, eight armoured trolls, a pair of Cyclopes and a harpy, the commissioner said so, what stole it? Is it ghosts again?"

"Apparently, knights on hoverbikes armed with lasers," Thom said, feeling stupid as he said it, Janet raised an eyebrow, "before you say anything, no he's not drunk, and he has footage and Aurors willing to vouch for it."

"Great, so now we're hunting knights on hoverbikes armed with lasers and a ridiculously powerful necromancy book," Janet sighed, "that is possibly the strangest thing I've said since Idaho."

"It is a bit strange," Thom said, "anyway, first dibs on the bathroom."

* * *

The site of the ambush was on a road just outside the city, not leaving anything to chance the Auror's had closed the road the night before pretending to be road maintenance, and this morning had staged a car crash, so were out dressed as police officers, being an Auror seemed to involve lots of dressing up. "Ah detective, good to see you," the commissioner said as he walked over, he was accompanied by a middle age police officer who was not an Auror, Janet had put a mist spell on herself to appear about twenty.

"Nice to meet you Detective Harker," the officer said as he shook hands with Thom, "and this lovely lady is?"

"Janet, my daughter, she wants to follow in my footsteps," Thom said smiling broadly.

"Ain't you a little pretty to be an officer, you wouldn't last a week girly," Janet simply smiled at him.

"I am perfectly capable officer, what was your name? You never told us," the officer caught of guard blushed.

"Landly, Eric Landly. Anyway, I'll be off, my patrol starts in twenty minutes," Landly walked over to his patrol car and drove off.

"Sorry about him Thom, he turns up every once in a while, good officer, he gets to some of our fake crimes before we do, anyway, the assault happened further down the road, just before the turning to the woods, which was the final destination, they were to apparate from there to outside the wards at the Vault."

The battle half apparently been fierce, there were scorch marks all over the vehicles, the backdoors to the main armoured truck had been cut off and lay six feet away. There were a dozen piles of dust under massive lumps of leather and iron armour, the dust slowly dispersing into the wind, all that remained of the trolls, the remains of the cyclops lay closer to the edge of the road, their massive clubs had been cut in half and lay atop the unmarked cyclops made armour.

"The twins took down a number of riders before they fell," the commissioner said sadly, "thankfully no Aurors died, however, one may lose his leg. We also have no-one to interrogate, the knights took their wounded with them, this was all very clean, military clean."

A large shadow swooped over the three of them, they looked up to see a very familiar giant bat alien, "perhaps I can be of assistance," Jetray said in his usual nasally voice.

"What do you want alien?" The commissioner growled, reaching for his wand, Jetray's eyes glowed in response.

"Stop it both of you," Janet said as stepped between the two of them, she had removed the mist spell when they got if the main road, "commissioner, Jetray may have something useful to say, and Jetray, please don't fry the commissioner, he works very hard to keep the city safe."

"So do I," Jetray muttered.

"You said you could help," Janet said changing the subject.

"The knights that attacked your convoy are Forever Knights, they're normal humans who basically want to kill all aliens, and some other things, but mainly kill aliens. They attack aliens, mainly peaceful aliens, and steal their tech, I don't know what they want with a spell book, but you can ask them that, they tend to live in one of dozens of castles scattered all over the world, there are several around Bellwood that we could try."

"Let's go then," Thom said, "we've got some knights to interrogate."

* * *

The castle looked brand new; it was nothing like the weathered castles back in England, more like Hogwarts with its unspoilt stone blocks. The castle was large, the walls were about sixty feet high, with six turrets, a drawbridge, a portcullis, and dozens of arrow slits, Thom, Janet, Ben, Kevin, and Gwen stood on a ridge about half a mile away from the castle.

"So, how many knights are there in the castle?" Janet asked hesitantly, the idea of six people attacking a full size castle was ridiculous.

"About a hundred to a hundred and fifty," Gwen said, "but they're usually spread out around the castle, you rarely encounter groups larger than six, unless there's a king or other high ranking knight in there."

"Is there?"

"No," Kevin said squinting at the barely visible flag pole, "the flag is at half mast, that means it's just bog standard knights, maybe a Sir."

"So let's go knock," Ben said as he pressed down the Omnitrix face, he turned into a white creature of about the same high. The creature only had a few teeth in its wide black lipped mouth but those it did have were pointy, if small, its back was covered in yellow armour plating, as was the back of its fleshy arms. "Cannonbolt," he rolled up in a ball and rolled forward quickly, the others ran after him.

"Does he always do this?" Janet asked Gwen.

"What? Recklessly charge headfirst into fights without us? Only on days ending in y," Janet smiled.

Cannonbolt charged straight through the drawbridge, portcullis, and the giant gate behind it, leaving a path of destruction in his wake, almost instantly an alarm sounds. "Well done," Janet said sarcastically, "now we have to fight all the knights."

Doors on the sides of the courtyard sprung open, releasing a stream of knights who quickly lined the battlements, each armed with a weird triangular gun, the last knight was different to the others, he wasn't wearing a helmet. He was probably in his early forties, with black hair that was graying at the temples and in a stripe down the centre, a strong chin, and blue eyes; he had high cheekbones and a sharp nose, which made him look severe.

"Why did you break into my castle monster?" The helmet-less knight asked.

"Mr Knight," Thom started.

"Sir, knave you will address me as Sir Thorns," he interrupted.

"You can't be a Sir, you're not from the Commonwealth, you're American," Thom said in confusion, the knight raised his gun, Thom raised his hands in surrender, "fine, fine, Sir Thorns it is, some of your Forever Knights recently attacked a convoy carrying a very powerful, and very dangerous spell book which was on its way to storage, we would like it back."

"Ah, yes, I am aware of it, the Leipzig Grimoire by Grinkleslurn. I'm afraid, you can't have it back, it's rather important for our plans, so, destroy them," the knights raised their guns and fired at the group in their courtyard, only for the shots to bounce harmlessly off the air near them, which shimmered in response to the barrage.

"Whenever you feel like it," Janet said as she gritted her teeth, holding the shield against the lasers was draining her magic quickly.

Ben hit the Omnitrix symbol, turning into a green humanoid crystalline creature, who was all planes and angles, like a cut gem, "Diamond Head," he raised his hands and fired green crystals at their attackers, eventually destroying their guns, Janet gasped from momentary weakness as she lowered the shield. The knights drew their swords and charged down the stairs from the battlements into the courtyard.

"Ooh, a sword fight, I can do that," Janet said smiling, she removed the bracelet from her wrist and pressed down on the eye of the snake carved into it, the bracelet morphed and turned into a sword.

It turned out that the knights were badly trained, their grasp of swordsmanship was shoddy at best, and some just charged with their sword above their head. So that despite Janet's tired state, they were soon defeated. Janet sighed as she knocked out the last knight, "well, that was disappointing, I thought someone would have at least taught these knights how to use a sword, it kind of comes with the territory."

"Janet, now's not the time to give advice to our enemies," Thom said as he rushed over to the nearest door, it was locked, " **alohomora** ," the door swung open, revealing, a corridor.

"Great, now we have to find him," Janet said, "or," she said looking at the nearest knight, " **expergisciminus** ," the knight groaned and tried to stand, " **incarcerous** ," the knight was wrapped in thick rope.

"You will get nothing from me witch, I will never talk," the knight shouted.

"You will talk," Janet said dangerously as she put a hand to his temple, "you don't have a choice, now show me where Sir Thorns is," the knight struggled as Janet invaded his mind, she was very impressed with his mental defences, for a muggle they were very strong, but she was stronger.

"No, please, don't, I don't want to betray my liege," the knight said, he sounded like he was crying.

"Got it," Janet said, "along with a floor plan of the castle," Janet walked down the corridor, the others followed, Thom was checking every corridor they passed, Ben, Gwen and Kevin were talking quietly out of confusion over what happened in the courtyard.


	8. Chapter 8

Eventually they reach the innermost room of the castle, it is a throne room, the room was about twenty metres long, ten metres wide, and five metres tall. The stone walls were hidden behind heavy velvet drapes, the only furniture in the room were ten braziers, set in pairs every two metres, and a long red carpet leading to a heavy bejewelled golden throne on a pedestal which was reached by a flight of six stair, Sir Thorns sat on the step below the throne. "You dare defile this inner chamber, this is for the king, and his knights only, leave now," Sir Thorns shouted.

"Not until we get that spell book Sir Thorns," Thom said grimly, "we get that book and take you into justice, then we will leave with you in cuffs."

"I am not subject to your laws, I am human, muggle I believe you call us, and as such only answer to my King, when he retakes his throne."

"You are subject to our laws when you attacked the convoy and ordered your lackeys to kill us, now surrender, " Sir Thorns sighed and raised his hands without standing, Thom stepped forward.

"In fact no, you surrender," he lunged for the throne and pressed down a button disguised as a sapphire, the curtains dropped, revealing three Laistrygonian giants, three men in robes, a dozen knights, and a large robot dressed as a knight.

"Oh no, Canadians," Janet said sarcastically, everyone looked at her strangely, "Laistrygonian giants, they're Canadian cannibals, well they're not human, so they're not really cannibals, it just rolls of the tongue better like that."

"I don't even want to know," Kevin said as he rubbed his temples.

"Kill them," Sir Thorns yelled as he fled the room.

The knights raised their guns and fired on the intruders, Janet waved a hand and raised a wall of rock to protect them, "there's too many, we need a plan," Gwen said as the robot and giants started pounding on the rock wall.

"Well, I'll take the giants," Janet said, "I have the only weapon that can defeat them," she gestured at her sword, "Ben, can you take the robot?" Ben nodded, "good, Gwen, Kevin take the knights, and then help Dad with the robed men, I'm guessing they're wizards."

"Let's go," Ben said changing into Humungousaur, and Kevin absorbed the rock floor. Janet lowered the rock wall, Ben charged out and shoulder barged the robot. Gwen and Kevin ran over to the knights, and Thom started holding off the three wizards, who were indeed wizards.

"Hey uglies," Janet shouted, the three Canadians turned to her, Janet giggled, "you responded, you're ugly."

"What do we do boss?" One the cannibals asked another.

"She a half-blood, we eat her you twit," the three of them charged Janet, who raised another rock wall.

The three giants stumbled groggily as they rebounded from the wall, which fell over under impact, they approached more carefully this time, Janet quickly ran through what she knew about them. 'Laistrygonian giants, immune to direct magic that hits their skin, but not indirect magic like elemental magic, and their eyes, mouths, nostrils and ear holes are all vulnerable, they are totally immune to fire and legilimency because they're too stupid for it to work. Very strong and stupid, if they go berserk they will ignore their pain, cook their food alive.'

The nearest Laistrygonian grabbed at her, but she hit a rock into his chin, he fell over, Janet stabbed her sword into his stomach, he vanished into dust. The other two charged Janet, she rolled between them as they charged straight past her and hit a rock wall she raised behind her, they turned and charged again, closer together this time, " **protego maxima** ," the two giants slammed into Janet's shield, and it shattered, but was able to interrupt them long enough for Janet to get out the way. "Shields are direct magic, good to know," the two giants picked up braziers and threw them at Janet, who grabbed them with the air inches from her face. She then threw them back, the iron braziers passed straight through the giants, "dammit iron, why can't you be Celestial Bronze?" Janet had an idea, she looked up, and smiled, she pulled down a block of stone from the ceiling, the block landed on one giant's head, squashing him.

The remaining giant, the one the other called boss, realised he was now alone, so he picked up the brazier again and threw it, Janet rolled out the way, "if I stay here, you can't get me," the giant said proudly as if he'd worked out the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.

"Yeah, I can," Janet picked up the block off his companion, who was now dust, and hit it into him, sending him flying into one of the knights, knocking him off his feet as well. They landed in a tangled pile; Janet ran over to the giant, and stabbed him in the chest. "See, I could get you," she checked the knight was unconscious before turning to the other fights, "right, who's next?"

The room was in chaos, the knights were now defeated, so Gwen and Kevin were helping Thom with the wizards, they appeared to be in a stalemate, meanwhile Ben was fighting the robot and had managed to remove one arm, but the robot was still hard to defeat. Deciding the wizards were most pressing Janet raised a shield and went over to help the other three; they were currently sheltering behind one of the columns that had been behind the curtain, the wizards were sheltering behind the throne's podium. Janet walked up behind them as they argued over how to defeat the three trespassers behind the column, " **petrificus totalus** ," Janet cast, the nearest wizard suddenly stiffened as the body bind set in, his companions, upon seeing Janet jumped up and set to work.

" **Conjuro fulguris** ," one cast, his spell glancing off her shield.

" **Expelliarmus** ," Janet cast, the other wizard stepped in.

" **Protego** ," the spell deflected Janet's hex.

" **Ventus** ," the spell hit before a shield could be raised, sending the two wizards out their hiding place.

"Bah, **imperio** ," the spell hit Janet, she could feel it battering at her occlumency shields, she mentally squashed it.

"Yeah, nice try, **incarcerous** ," the rope wrapped around one of the wizards, binding his arms to his body and gagging him from casting more spells.

" **Petrifica totalus** ," Thom cast, the remaining wizard, caught by surprise falls into the body bind, "Janet are you okay?" Thom rushed to her side.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" Janet asked confused by her Dad's actions.

"You got hit by the imperious curse."

"Oh yeah, I did do that, it's fine, it didn't do anything," there was a roar of triumph; they turned to see that Ben, now assisted by Gwen and Kevin had finally defeated the robot. Janet knelt next to the tied up wizard who was struggling to get away, and put her hand to his temple, he stopped struggling and started snoring.

"Come on, Sir Thorns has run off."

* * *

The five of them made their way through the castle until they reached another room, they opened the door, inside was Sir Thorns, the room was long, about forty metre, and thin, only five metres wide at its widest point. Sir Thorns stood at the only furniture in the room, a raised stone lectern with a book open on it.

"Ah, you survived, that's a shame, well no matter, I will defeat you now," he flicked over a page in the book and started chanting, the air wavered and distorted, as they ran forward the air clung at them, and held them back, slowing them to barely more than a crawl. "Excellent," Sir Thorns smiled as he clapped his hands together, "I don't plan to kill you, I should tell you my plans to you, in this grimoire, Grinkleshlurn wrote out his best spells, including a true mind control spell, Grinkleshlurn was defeated before he could use it, but I will now invoke it on you, and then the world."

'Oh great, that kind of crazy,' Janet thought, she reached for his mind, he had no mental defences, she warily made her way inside, she found the counter-curse to the slowing curse, but he had read the spell. He flicked through the book until he found the right spell, he started to read it, Janet switch the two thought, he did not notice as he read off the counter-curse, freeing up his hostages, Janet's body collapsed as she was pulled back to it, and into sleep forced on her by exhaustion.


	9. Chapter 9

Janet woke up to a white ceiling, she sat up and drowsily looked around her, she was in a perfectly white room, everything was white, the curtains, the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the other beds with curtains around them, the window frames, the chests of drawers, even the flowers in their vases on each chest of drawers. She was in an Auror infirmary, she sighed, magical infirmaries are boring places to be, nothing ever happens, you stay in a perfectly white room for a couple of days, drink some awful tasting concoction, and then go home.

Several hours of going stir crazy from just sitting there later, a nurse arrived and checked up on the other patients in the room, none had wanted to talk to Janet, so she had resorted to counting things, any things, she could not even see out the window.

"Right then my dear," the nurse said cheerfully, she was a slightly plump lady in her late forties, with dimpled red cheeks, frizzy blond hair, and green eyes, she was in a standard white nurse's uniform and had a bow in her hair above her right eyebrow. "Let's look at your vitals," she took out her wand and waved it over Janet.

"Can I go now?" Janet asked, "I am well aware of why I passed out, and I'm fine now."

"Now, now my dear, you were hit by an imperious curse, you can't leave yet, not until the doctor discharges you," she sounded so cheerful it hurt to listen.

"I am aware I was hit by an imperious curse, but it had no effect on me because I am an occlumencer, meaning, that it did nothing," Janet said as slowly and as patronisingly as possible.

The nurse frowned and pouted, putting her hands on her hips she lectured Janet, "now you don't take that tone with me missy, we are aware you are an occlumencer, your Dad said so, but protocol states that a doctor must discharge you."

"Well, can I see a doctor please?" Janet said exasperated.

"I'm sorry, but he's busy at the moment, he should be along in a few hours to do his rounds, until then, all your vitals are fine, rest, relax, and get some sleep," the nurse's tone was back to sickly sweet, "I'll be around in an hour to deliver lunch."

"Can I at least have a book?" Janet asked.

"Of course dear, the library is downstairs, it's not very extensive I'm afraid, it says on your chart that you're allowed to take a short walk, so go and get a book if you want to, and I must say, it's good to see a child like their reading," the nurse got up and walked away.

* * *

So after a short excursion, which involved getting very lost Janet was back in the hospital bed trying to get comfortable whilst reading a pretty badly written book, but the only book in the library that looked okay, it was mainly books for small children, and romances. The nurse, true to her word return a short while later, but she looked a bit awkward, although she delivered the meals, her gait had changed, she was not smiling, in fact she was frowning, and her hair had changed, it was less frizzy, and the bow was gone.

"Are you the same nurse from earlier?" Janet asked.

"Of course deary," the smile was forced, and the voice was different, close, but different.

"Who are you?" Janet asked, narrowing her eyes at the imposter.

The smile faded, the nurse turned away, drew her wand, and waved it, her shape melted into the shape of Caucasian man with a shaved head, he waved his wand again, and the nurse's uniform turned into a hooded black robes, black gloves and an ornate silver beaked mask. "Very good little girl, too bad you're going to die," he turned back, but the bed was empty, "where did you go?" He spun around and stalked out the room, under the bed Janet sighed in relief, she grabbed her clothes from the chest of drawers next to her bed and changed in the bathroom at the end of the ward. "Ah ha," the Death Eater shouted, "I found you, hid in the bathroom did you? No matter, I will prevail, we're three floors up, no rocks up here little girl."

"I could so easily make a joke out of that I'm not even going to," Janet said, the Death Eater growled under his mask, which just sounded like a tinny sneeze. "We're on the third floor of the local Auror Headquarters you dunce."

" **Avadra kedavra** ," Janet used the air to move the chest of drawers to block the curse, the solid wood charred but did not break.

"Huh, better made than I thought," Janet threw the chest of drawers at the Death Eater.

" **Reducto** ," the projectile exploded, creating a cloud of dust and debris, blinding the Death Eater.

Janet ran over to the window, " **reducto** ," the window exploded outwards, creating a hole large enough for Janet to get through, pulling the Mist around herself to confuse the muggles she jumped out the opening, creating a pillow of air just before landing, the pillow slowed her descent, so when she landed she walked back into the Auror headquarters.

"Excuse me madame, this is private property," the receptionist said, Janet dropped the Mist.

"There's a Death Eater in the infirmary," Janet reported calmly as she walked into the lobby, "I don't think he's meant to be there."

"Madame, I have no clue what you are talking about," the receptionist said, but

Janet waved her wand at him, "there is a Death Eater in the infirmary, raise the alarm."

"Madame, you don't have the authority," the receptionist said giving up on the act.

"Bureaucrat," Janet sighed before entering his mind using legilimency to locate the alarm, she walked over to the fire alarm slid down the red box, revealing a list of areas and floors, and some bronze buttons next to each label, she pressed the one next to the infirmary, alarms blared.

"All Aurors to the infirmary, all Aurors to the infirmary."

"You don't have the authority to do that," the receptionist shouted angrily, "you didn't follow protocol, **stupify**."

Janet batted aside the spell with her hand, the receptionist gawked, "yes, I do." Janet turned and walked towards the stairs, suddenly bars fell over the stairs, doors, and elevators, the receptionist had pressed a button under his desk. "You dolt, you could be costing lives, what are you...? Oh, oh I see, the incompetent receptionist, I see, you're a traitor aren't you, an occlumencer powerful enough to fool me, you're meant to prevent me from apprehending your boss."

The receptionist laughed, a deep, evil laugh, "well done," he said sarcastically, "you worked it out, how clever, my boss will escape, you can't stop him."

"Except for the fact the alarm drops anti-disapparition wards on the building, how do you plan to get out? How does he plan to get out for that matter? You didn't think this through."

"I don't plan to get out, I plan to go to jail, I will be a martyr for the followers of the dark lord, you pathetic blood traitor."

"Oh, you're that kind of crazy, fanatics, why is it always fanatics? Let me guess, to continue the trope, hmm, these bars can only be opened by you or the commissioner?"

"Of course, well, unless you're a child or Hecate, or something but what are the chances of that?"

"About one in one," the receptionist's smile dropped to a frown, "yeah, next time you agree to some stupid scheme, do some research."

"You're lying."

"Yeah, no I'm not, anyway, enough talking, **expelliarmus** ," the spell flew at the receptionist.

" **Protego** ," the spell was absorbed by the shield, "now die, **conjuro fulguris** ," lightning flew from the end of his wand straight at Janet.

Janet blocked with a shield charm, "I feel like I should be playing trope bingo with you, what's next? Monologuing whilst I'm put in a ridiculous death trap?"

"Bah, insolent swine," the receptionist sneered.

"Oh, there it is, haven't heard that one in a while, **petrificus totalus** ," the body bind flew at the receptionist who blocked it with a shield.

"I will kill you, **incendio** ," the fire ball left his wand, Janet waved her hand and the fire redirected straight back to him, " **protego** ," the fire ball burst on the shield.

"Word of advice, it's generally not a good idea to attack an elementalist with a fireball, unless you are also an elementalist, and, news flash, you're not. **Conjuro fulguris tria** ," lightening shot forward at the receptionist.

" **Protego maxima** ," a shield flickered into existence in front of the receptionist, and held back the lightening for a split second before shattering, the lightening hit the receptionist, sending him flying, he hit his head on a wall and passed out.

"So, how do I get out of here without breaking something?" Janet wondered out loud. " **Wingardium leviosa** ," the bars lifted a little, but hit something just above them, they were not going back the way they came. Janet walked over to the desk and looked underneath, there was a small bronze button, she pressed it, nothing. The receptionist was going to be no help, his mental shields were going to be too strong to break quickly, there was nothing else. The lobby had a mosaic of Prometheus in chains on the floor, the fire alarm from earlier, the desk, with one empty drawer, one drawer full of paperwork, the little button, a phone and a copy of Wizard's Weekly. 'It's hidden,' Janet thought as she walked the wall, pressing on various wooden panels, 'the floor, it must be symbolic, why else would it be Prometheus rather than mum, Dike or Themis? They're more typical for Auror offices.' Janet walked over to the mosaic and poked and prodded at Prometheus' chains, nothing moved, she then looked over at his face, he had his head turned, looking over into an empty corner. So, after poking and prodding his face, Janet walked to the corner where Prometheus was looking and pressed on the wall panels, the bars rose back into the ceiling. "That is over complicated," Janet muttered as she walked out the room, before stopping, " **incarcerous** ," the receptionist was bound in ropes.

The next floor was normal looking, the alarm had stopped a while ago, the next floor was also normal. The infirmary was buzzing with activity, the nurse was lying in a bed with a bandage around her temples, Aurors were rushing around, setting up tape, moving patients out the room Janet had been in, she eventually found her Dad, the commissioner and the Commissioner (the big national one, not some small regional one.)

"This is a very big breach in your security Ian, if you don't find the person who let him in I will replace you," the commissioner shrunk in on himself, "I did not assign one of my top Aurors to you just for his very promising demigod daughter to go missing out of your infirmary."

Janet coughed, everyone turned to her, "I'm fine, I just jumped out the window," she said smiling weakly.

"Just jumped out the window?" The Commissioner asked, "there's nothing just about jumping out a third story window."

"It was fine, by the way, your security breach, it's your receptionist, he refused to raise the alarm and then tried to kill me, he's a bit tied up in the lobby at the moment," the Commissioner raised an eyebrow at her subordinate who blush.

"Rupert? No, it can't be, he's a great kid, not too bright, but nice enough."

"He activated your security lockdown on me, and then tried to kill, but you're right, he's not too bright."

The commissioner sighed before signalling over two passing Aurors, "go arrest Rupert, he's apparently in the lobby," they nodded and left.

"Oh yeah, be careful at the trial, he's an occlumencer," Janet said.

"Well, that just leaves our mysterious Death Eater, he's evaded you twice Ian, once he'd even been gift wrapped for you by Janet, then there's the matter of losing the Leipzig Grimoire to terrorists dressed as knights, I think a review is in order," Ian whimpered as the Commissioner spun and walked out.

"Well, I think it's time to go home Janet," Thom said, "I've got tickets booked for tomorrow, we've got Uncle Alistair visiting soon, good bye Ian," Thom said as he left the room, Janet following behind.


End file.
